Working From Home: The Silver Lining of the COVID-19 Pandemic

[Image Credit: Alessandro Massimiliano/ Getty Images]

By Cherise Charleswell

During this unprecedented global coronavirus pandemic there has been a great deal of uncertainty, hardships, frustration, and unfortunately – loss of loved ones, so it makes it exceptionally difficult to recognize any positivity during these trying times. As our existence becomes more and more precarious, and it feels like we are failing miserably on this team assignment to combat this virus and slow the spread of infection, I want to point out a sliver of hope, and the silver lining that has come out of this pandemic.

To truly understand what I’m going to share please consider one of the main reasons why the COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented. This has to do with the fact that we, our global community, all homo sapiens are more connected than we have been during any other time in human history. In a sense, globalization has been completed. We can board a plane and get to the most remote parts of the world within hours, use high speed rail (outside of the United States, of course, because our infrastructure is poorly lacking) and crisscross a country within hours, and there are many far flung Diasporas where certain groups, whether identified by nationality, race, or ethnicity, can be found in parts of the world that is a great distance from their country/region of origin.

And there is no doubt that we’ve benefited from this connectedness.  We’ve benefited in terms of learning about different cultures, tasting and falling in love with various cuisines, establishing meaningful friendships, and we could only hope, that we’ve learned more about tolerance, respect for others, and the importance of upholding human rights across the world.

Unfortunately, at this time, we are losing the Microbial Arms Race, which is a war that began with our early human ancestors and involves a competition between humans and microbes; where microbes are constantly adapting (mutating) to overcome barriers to their ability to infect our bodies. These barriers have include the complexity and evolutionary adaptability of our own immune systems, improved sanitation practices, as well as the use of vaccines and drugs/therapeutics. One of the most well-known “superbugs” is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), an especially difficult-to-treat variety of the disease-causing bacteria staph. MRSA and other antibiotic-resistant bacteria stand proof that bacteria have learned to outsmart us much faster than we can invent new treatments.

Our current connectedness and exploitation of the planet, uncovering unknown microbes for which we do not have any immunity, only exacerbates the situation, and has helped to fuel this pandemic. And it truly seems like the microbes are winning, as borders are closing – forcing  us to disconnect, and we have to cope with the reality that we are without immunity or any natural defense against COVID-19.

So, where is the silver lining?

It’s faint, but it’s there. And one place to find it, is when we look at the way that “working from home”  or “remotely” has helped to not only transform the lives of workers, and the dynamics of communities, but how this transition has positively impacted the planet.While we spend so much time focused on the microscopic organism and its threat, we must not forget the fact that we all call Earth home, and as Astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, and lecturer Carl Sagan stated, this “Pale Blue Dot” is home to all of us, all life forms, and it is the only place in the known universe that we can inhabit. Unfortunately and despite, knowing that we have no other planet or place to go, we’ve continued to harm and destroy this planet.

Prior to the COVID19 pandemic scientists had estimated that we had only 11 years left (as in until 2030) before we will have to cope with the devastating effects of global warming and climate degradation. Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg who has been afforded the most attention by the international press, and other young activists, such as Isra Hirsi, Autumn Peltier, Bruno Rodriguez, Helena Gualinga, Mary Copeny, Delaney Reynolds, Kisha Erah Muana, Alexandria Villasenor, Vic Barrett, Katie Eder, have also been beating the drum, demanding climate action, and fighting for their, and our right to have a future. Seriously, as a Millennial, I would like to be able to live into my “Golden Years”!

For the young activists and other people from the Global south, island nations, and other nations at or below sea level, the situation is even more dire. Their lives, and my own family’s lives, will be impacted more greatly; and this includes the complete loss of homeland. Countries such as Kirbati in the South Pacific have actually already begun the process of vacating their island-nation, and re-settling it’s citizens. The worse and most ironic part about all of this is that those living in the Global South and marginalized people all around the world, hold the least responsibility for climate change and environmental degradation.  What is taking place is the result of the actions of people living in the “West”, more affluent nations, and their multinational corporations. These nations have built their wealth off of raping and exploitation of peoples and the very planet that we live on. All for manufactured wealth and profit. Not realizing that our greatest form of wealth has been this planet.

In short, capitalism and hyper-consumerism are leading us to the apocalypse.

So, let’s focus on some of the positive that COVID-19 and the resultant millions of people who no longer commute daily, no longer piling onto congested highways, and instead are working from home has done for the planet:

Internationally, the levels of air pollution has declined since early March when lockdown directives really began to go into effect. This is being tracked and confirmed by the number of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions in the air; with NO2 being a marker of pollution.

The earth has gone quiet! Seismologist and other researchers have reported that there has been a noted drop in seismic noise, which could be the result of transport networks and other human activities being shut down.

More about the environmental benefits here, here, and here.

When you consider all of this it would seem like Mother Earth is healing, and we must really take some time to appreciate the fact, that we are witnessing the reversal of centuries of destruction, in merely a few  months’ time. That this small pause in destructive human activity, is all the earth needed to begin healing again.We must remember this, and realize that we have been presented with a great opportunity, and cannot go back to what we’ve been doing before.

It is no longer about surviving a virus, but surviving as a species, period.

The increase in the number of people working from home globally, has created this silver-lining.

I would like to present Six Shades of Silver to consider. These are the environmental and social benefits of having more people work from home:

1. Environmental Protection: Less traffic, less utilization of gasoline, and a sharp reduction in all forms of commuting has without a doubt provided a benefit to the planet. Also, the fact that the “Outdoors” seem to be the only thing currently accessible “Outside” means that there are more people interested in exploring and preserving national parks, hiking trails, and other natural environments that they may have not visited before.

2. No Bedroom Communities - When one really thinks about it, it didn’t really make any sense to force the majority of workers to pile into their cars, generally head in the same direction, and across overburdened  roads and highways, to join a slow procession of cars; in order to trade their labor for pay/wages. We can immediately do away with the phrase “rush hour” by increasing the number of remote workers.

   With remote work, more workers could opt to move away from over crowded urban centers and this may offer the benefit of not only improving quality of life, but may help to reduce homelessness, particularly in urban areas, where many find themselves residing in because of the proximity to jobs. Leaving housing in these areas, such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Washington D. C. limited and thus unaffordable.

   Let’s talk more about the lives of people who would no longer have to live in “bedroom communities” and who would instead be able to live in affordable, less congested, greener, and thriving communities that are located at a distance from urban centers. Rather than awaking at some ridiculous time in the morning in order to sit for an hour or more in traffic, and essentially abandon their communities until nightfall. These workers will have an opportunity to be active members of their communities and these communities won’t be deserted towns for most of the day.

   Non-commuting workers would have more time to spend with their children and families, to get out-and-about in their neighborhood, take a walk along a trail (a physical and mental health benefit that can increase longevity), prepare nutritious meals for breakfast and lunch rather than relying on eating snacks, junk food, and fast-food in a hurry at their desk or in their car during their commute. And working in the community that one lives means that there is a greater  opportunity to build bonds with neighbors and patronize local businesses. Retaining the workers who are often gone for 10-12 hours a day, 5 days a week, means that these communities will truly be able to “come to life”.

3. Less Office Space/More Affordable Housing: Homelessness is a manufactured phenomenon. One that is brought about by accepted socioeconomic & political systems, such as capitalism, policies, and social norms. There is truly enough “room” or space to effectively provide shelter to all people on this planet. We simply do not do so, because we place more value on land and land use than we do on lives. This is why it is not uncommon to find buildings, houses, and other housing units sitting unoccupied in cities that have extreme problems with homelessness.

   Homelessness and poverty are inextricably linked. Poor people are frequently unable to pay for housing, food, childcare, utilities (heating & electricity) health care, and education. Leaving them with difficult choices to make when limited resources cover only some of these necessities. Often it is housing, which absorbs a high proportion of income that must be dropped. If you are poor, you are essentially an illness, an accident, a paycheck, and now a pandemic away from living on the streets.

   With the mass loss of jobs and the resultant unemployment and underemployment of workers, the COVID-19 pandemic is providing an opportunity to re-think, or finally admit that there is a problem in believing that some people are more deserving of housing than others. As we talk about stopping evictions of workers and business owners, we should also consider those who were not only evicted, but forced out of their homes due to increasing economic inequity and poverty and the lack of affordable housing prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The current alarming rates of homelessness that we see with 2019 estimates being that 567,715 Americans experience homelessness on a single  night, have been growing over the past 40 years, and has been tied to the erosion of the  middle class, the massive transfer of wealth from workers to the 1%,  economic inequity - with 20% of families making more than half of all U.S. income, stagnant wages, and the exponential  growth in the cost of housing. Reagan’s trickle down economy was a trick, and no one knows  this more than those of us born during and after the Reagan era. We are the first generation in  American history to have a quality of life that is far worse off than the previous generation.

   With an increase in the number of workers working from  home, we can begin considering converting office spaces to residential use, and/or halting the  development of even more office buildings, and focus on building more affordable housing.  Further, “affordable” housing shouldn’t be something that is made available to workers living  well below the poverty line. We need to think of affordable housing in terms of something that  is accessible to the average worker. So, it is not about creating a program, checking eligibility,  and having social workers visit families placed in affordable units, its more about having enough  available units and homes that can be afforded by (meaning not costing more than 30-40% of  their salary) people making the median salary/wage in a city or county. “Affordable housing” truly needs to signify being able to afford to pay the rent or mortgage on a home based on one’s current wages.

4. Families and Childcare: While most women are active members of the global workforce. Out of the world’s 197 countries, the United States and Papua New Guinea are the only countries that have no federally mandated policy to provide new mothers with paid time off. Policies, provision, and management of maternity leave is left up to states and individual employers. And the time off provided to expectant and new mothers in the United States pales in comparison to maternity leave in other countries. For example, in the “progressive” state of California, mothers can typically take up 12 weeks to bond with their child; and are expected to return back to work while their child is still an infant. In the United States paternity leave is nonexistent and quality childcare is extremely expensive.

   Remote work can decrease or eliminate these financial and logistical burdens for families, and allow time for more critical bonding between parent and child(ren). This is especially true when you consider getting back all of the time loss to commuting, which often leaves parents and their children with very limited time to actually interact before bedtime and preparation for the next day. Flexible work from home schedules means that parents can begin working earlier in the day, resume work later in the evening, or even take off a Wednesday, and catch up on work on a Sunday. The silver-lining is that working parents do not have to choose between being professionals, breadwinners, and having a presence in their child(ren)’s lives.

5. Less Commuting, Coworkers Coughing, & the Potential To Contract Communicable Diseases: We all have our “war stories” where we arm ourselves with lysol, sanitizer, tissue boxes, etc. and enter our places of work, knowing that there would be many sick and infectious people passing by and working in close proximity. We avoid shaking hands, ask people not to use the phones on our desks, and begin to bob-and-weave the minute that we hear someone coughing. And we did all of this long before COVID-19. We did this because we knew that entering our crowded workplaces, particularly office buildings & warehouses where windows don’t open, and doors remain close for the most of the day, meant that it was likely for us to contract a disease, whether it be the common cold, flu; or more serious diseases such as meningitis or tuberculosis; which can readily spread in a workplace setting.Therefore, there can only be a benefit of decrease interactions with coworkers, collaborators, clients, and others; particularly during Flu season.

6. Improved Work-Life Balance: Working from home not only allows a worker to save money, due to less of a need for gasoline or eating out for lunch, it further improves the work-life balance by providing workers more time for their families, for themselves, for rest (sleeping in rather than having to rush to catch a bus, train, or battle traffic), to workout, do yoga, meditate, and cook healthy meals. It allows them to actively implement self care into their daily routine rather than make it something that has to be planned for and scheduled by appointment. Far more can be accomplished when preparing for work, going to work, and actually working doesn’t take up 40-50% of the day or a 24 hours period.

The Need To Transform The Workplace

The COVID-19 pandemic has made, or should’ve made it clear to many employers that their businesses and/or organizations can continue to operate with their workers or most of their workers working remotely. This is why the job advertisements that state “temporary remote” really are nonsensical. If that position can be carried out by a remote worker for the unforeseeable future, as we wait for this pandemic to wane, why should the worker in that position return to working onsite?

Employers have to get out of the outdated view of employees as children who need to be micromanaged by babysitters (managers and supervisors) who glare at them through their office windows or as they sit in crammed cubicles. This need to supervise not only the output of workers, but also their movement, truly harkens back to the practice of blocking exits that was once utilized in the workplace prior to the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that took place in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village in 1911. On that day 150 garment workers who were mostly women and immigrants were trapped and killed when the building caught fire, and all exits remained blocked. A number of the women were photographed as they attempted to flee the building by jumping through the windows, and falling to their death. This horrific incident was witnessed by Frances Perkins, a sociologist, workers-rights advocate and the first women to be appointed to the U.S. Cabinet; where she served as the Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, under President Theodore Roosevelt. Frances championed the cause of The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The FLSA required that employers pay overtime to all employees who worked more than 44 hours a week, and by 1940 the 40-hour work week became U.S. law.

Henry Ford and his Ford Motor Company actually began popularizing the 40-hour work week prior to this landmark legislation, in 1914, after research confirmed his belief that working more yielded only a small increase in productivity that lasted a short period of time; hence too many hours of work were bad for worker’s productivity and a company’s profitability. 

When it comes to this continued need or desire to “babysit” that some employers have, one has to ask - Why go through the process of searching for the best educated, experienced, and professional job candidates, if you are going to treat them like children who are unable to set priorities and manage their own schedules?

We are long overdue for a Labor revolution, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only helped to illuminate this fact. It has forced us to rethink where, how, and when we work; as well as what & how much we are willing to sacrifice when we trade our time for wages. We should take the opportunity presented by the pandemic to make changes that match the current needs, lifestyle, and realities of the 21st century worker. The re-establishment and/or support of labor unions will be needed to usher in this change.

Transitioning workers whose jobs are performed in an office setting, using a computer, etc. to remote workers, should be a part of this Labor revolution. Remote work provides the opportunity to shift the focus of work from the amount of time dedicated to work, to confirming whether tasks and assignments are completed. With task-based work, workers are provided with far more flexibility and freedoms; especially since there is less emphasis on the time of day, or days that they work. And this is something that employers really need to consider, because forcing people to sit at a desk for 8 consecutive hours does not guarantee that they are going to spend all of that time working. Instead, they are likely to attempt to get other things accomplished during that time, whether it is taking an extending lunch in order to make a medical appointment, checking personal emails, responding to texts from family and friends, surfing social media, paying their bills online, getting caught up on gossip near a water cooler, or taking multiple informal breaks to grab coffee or tea, walk, stretch, and think; because it is truly difficult for human beings to sit still and stare at a screen for long periods.

Our bodies didn’t evolve to sustain this sedentary lifestyle. All of this again, makes the focus on how worker’s spend their time futile, and far from a true measure of productivity.

A 2014 report from AtTask shared the following response from 268 workers about how they typically spent their 8-hour work days:

• 45% of the time was spent on primary job duties

• 40% of the time was spent on meetings, administrative tasks, and “interruptions”

• 14% of the time was spent responding to emails

Remote Work Also Offers Benefits To Employers

Here is a short list of benefits of remote work that employers should take the time to contemplate:

1. Research has shown that engaged remote workers are more productive. And this productivity could also be contributed to having a healthier workforce where worker’s had more time for physical activity and where there were no concerns about spread of infectious agents, resulting in many workers having to take sick days.

2. There are obvious cost-saving benefits to having employees work from home, and this includes less overheard expenses in form of office space leases, furniture, security, as well as utility costs. Outside of payroll and fringe benefits the other major expenses would only be providing employees with technology (computers, printers, web conference logins, etc.) and supplies to utilize at home to perform their jobs.

3. Meetings would be fewer, shorter, and more meaningful. In person meetings tend to involve lots of casual banter, and may be used by people to lodge complaints and personal grievances that only involve few people in the meeting. When it comes to remote meetings, there is more of a desire and incentive to use the allocated time more wisely, which means stay on task and get through the agenda. There are already jokes about being “Zoomed out”, and this has led to more focused meanings and less frequent meetings. And remote work doesn’t have to mean the end of in person meetings, in a post-covid world, these types of meetings could always be arranged at local restaurants, cafes, coffee shops, or even in rental office and co-working  spaces; book through sites such as peerspace.com, easyoffice.com, or liquidspace.com.

4. Employers will be able to use the cost savings to reinvest in the company, expand the organization and increase capacity, maximize profits, or increase employee salaries in order to retain the most productive and effective workers, but also attract additional talent.

5. With remote work, employers can literally cast their nets wider and further, and tap into a larger pool of talented, educated, and experienced job candidates, rather than being limited by geographic location. More about how remote work attracts and retains top talent here.

The Reality

Our professions are greatly varied, so the reality is that not all workers will be able to transition to remote work, and this includes those deemed to be essential workers - who work in health care, agriculture, food service (especially supermarkets), law enforcement, fire, and first responders, construction workers, entertainers and athletes, and those working in human services; as well as workers in the service industries - cosmetologists, barbers, masseuses, and so on.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic has proven that many jobs can transition to a remote model quickly and efficiently , and these are the positions that we should focus on, because there are great benefits to the planet, to individual workers, to families, to communities, and even the companies when these workers stay home.

Finally, the best way to be prepared for and combat the next pandemic, or ensure that our planet remains habitable to human life, is by embarking on this radical change to the “workplace”. Like that of the early 20th Century, The 21st Century Labor Revolution is a matter of life and death.

Let’s stay home.

Cherise Charleswell is an unapologetic Black feminist, author/writer, poet, public health researcher/practitioner, radio personality, social critic, political commentator, independent scholar, activist, entrepreneur, and model who doesn’t believe in thinking or staying in one box. She is also a Founding member of The Hampton Institute and remains in an Advisory position. Her work has been published in various magazines, textbooks and  anthologies, websites, and academic journals; including The Hampton Institute: A Working Class Think Tank, New Politics, For Harriet, Black Women Unchecked, Zocalo The Public Square, Truth Out, Rewind & Come Again, Natural Woman Magazine, Kamoy Magazine, New Republic, Blue Stocking Magazine, Broad A Feminist & Social Justice Magazine, Obsidian Magazine, AWID Young Feminist Wire, Afro City Magazine, Role Reboot, Code Red for Gender Justice, Kalyani Magazine, Interviewing The Caribbean, TruthOut, Our Legacy Magazine, and Rival Magazine Los Angeles.

Cherise is of West Indian descent, with heritage from various Caribbean islands, & is an avid world traveler, visiting over 30 countries and counting. She can’t wait for Da’ Rona to go away so she can get back to traveling.

The Meditation Ethic and the Spirit of "Inclusive Capitalism"

By James Richard Marra

In the United States, capitalism is becoming "mindful." Meditating corporate CEOs, capitalist think tanks, research institutions, and government ally to champion a burgeoning “mindfulness” industry and a new social conception of what it means to live and work under finance-monopoly capitalism (FMC). Increasingly, large domestic and globalized businesses, mainly in the finance, technology, and electronics (FTE) sector of the “Knowledge Economy” (KE) are introducing employer-sponsored employee meditation programs (EMPs). These programs work in synergy with putatively healthful and productive work environments, and within the wider social context of an emerging “socially conscious” capitalist regime.[1]

The business plans of individual enterprises as well of the EMP industry extend beyond the microeconomic to the entire FTE sector and the FMC society as a whole. The institutional network within the capitalist social “superstructure” supports these efforts, and thereby the profitability of businesses, markets, and the mindfulness industry. For example, innovative technology developed within universities fosters start-ups that establish deep penetration into related markets. Walter W. Powell and Kaisa Snellman indicate that

This trend repeats itself on a global scale, as the founding of new firms occurs in a limited number of regions with access to leading research institutions, venture capital, and an abundant pool of educated labor (Owen-Smith et al. 2002).[2]

Combined, these institutions help businesses most profitably implement EMPs. They also help identify specific and favored sets of cognitive skills that can be used as metrics for recruiting, maintaining, and advancing the most valuable group of workers. These laborers represent the “hard core” of FTE labor power, whose technical prowess commands capitalist interest.

Yet, these workers endure increasingly afflictive work environments created by the modes of production FTE businesses. These businesses need to respond to competition resulting from the rapid introduction of new products, and technological innovation; so work is “fast paced.” Profitability demands feed heavy productivity goals, translating into workers working harder, and over longer periods. They do so while accepting increasing responsibilities driven by workforce consolidations and reductions, and “flexible” working hours. Peter S. Goodman, Executive Business and Global News Editor at The Huffington Post, points out that flexible work hours create an environment where, "No one counts how many hours people sit at their desks." At Google, some workers endure 80-hour workweeks.[3] At Amazon, “They overwork you and you’re like a number to them. During peak season and Prime season, they give you 60 hours a week. In July, I had Prime week and worked 60 hours. The same day I worked overtime, I got into a bad car accident because I was falling asleep behind the wheel.”[4]

Productive work within the FTE is intense, its volume considerable, involving complex technical tasks and management processes. Research correlates persistent physical, psychological, and social problems among workers laboring within such debilitating workplace environments. These conditions create psychological and behavioral dispositions that negatively affect productivity. Workers exhibit a lack of empathy, impatience, emotional control, and task engagement, as well as a commitment to business goals and loyalty to the employer. Low worker morale can lead to behaviors that weaken collaboration, communication, leadership, creativity, accountability, and judgment. They can also increase absenteeism, employee turnover, while corrupting business and ethical judgments. The federal government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that “productivity losses related to personal and family health problems cost U.S. employers $1,685 per employee per year, or $225.8 billion annually.”

Consider as an example of this systemic workplace toxicity, the wage system under which many millennials work. FTE workers receive wages and benefits, Marx's "variable capital" payments. Because EMPs are an investment in employee skills and wellness, and not in the means of production, business owners pay for EMPs, applying capital, and accounting it to some benefit (like “wellness”) or wage category (like a bonus). The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) establishes wage structure rules. The US Labor Department Most considers most FTE workers as “exempt” from overtime wages. These include executive management, administrators, professional, and computer roles.

The FLSA salary protocol provides businesses with a profitable mechanism by which owners can allow workers to meditate during the working day, without incurring a potential business risk involving overtime payments. Workers can meditate at work all they wish, as long as they meet production requirements, and manifest corresponding workforce performance dispositions. With exempt compensation, the functional significance of the length of the working day as a determinant of productivity is lost. The concept of the “working day” is replaced by the “contract period,” and removed from the capitalist lexicon of exempt labor. 

The result is that the range of practicable solutions to the debilitating effects of expanding working days is constrained. For example, the range of potential improvements to the workplace environment identified by Mattke, Schnyer, and Van Busum include only those that require a modification of employee behavior, and not other aspects of the mode of production, such as the length of the working day. Nowhere in the paper do the authors mention such concepts as "the working day," "exempt," "salaried," or "hourly." They employ the word "capital" exclusively with reference to human capital management: "Our senior management is committed to health promotion as an important investment in human capital.”[5] When identifying changes to the working environment, the study offers strategies that "range from changes to the working environment, such as providing healthy food options in the cafeteria, to comprehensive interventions that support employees in adopting and sustaining healthy lifestyles."[6] 

Nevertheless, businesses remain sensitive to the negative production implications of worker debilitation. They are also aware of the human capital value of offering a mindfulness program as part of their wellness and self-fulfillment benefits. Thus, employers address a potential production problem, while also providing value added to the employee. The millennial workforce appreciates of value of mental focus to work success, a recognition gained from their educational experience. These meditating workers generally testify that they feel a greater sense of “empowerment,” by acquiring mental tools to help relieve anxiety, stress, and disinterestedness. 

Denise Parris is recognizes the need to align millennial socialization with the current mode of production. Her work ethic recognizes that “helping others is not self-sacrifice but self-fulfillment,”[7] and seeks to impress upon business owners an appreciation of the productive value of servant leadership, and motivate them to implement EMPs. In this way, industry experts advise businesses on how to leverage the socialization of a favored class of workers to design and promote their EMPs, which promise expanded productivity.[8] 

The metaphysics, theory, science, ethos, promises, and expectations surrounding EMPs have their critics. William Little, writing for The Guardian, criticizes selective causality and evidentiary cherry picking within EMP marketing. He suggests, echoing Marx and Engels, that workplace meditation may represent an “opiate” that desensitizes the worker from the symptoms of the toxic workplace.[9] 

Some scientific studies regarding EMPs suggest prudence regarding claims of positive affects of workplace meditation. As M. Goyal, S. Singh, and E.M.S. Sibinga conclude from a study of 41 meditation programs that “the mantra meditation programs do not appear to improve any of the psychological stress and well-being outcomes we examined, but the strength of this evidence varies from low to insufficient.[10] Behavioral scientists Kathleen D. Vohs and Andrew C. Hafenbrack, writing for the The New York Times, illuminate a puzzling contradiction: 

“A central technique of mindfulness meditation, after all, is to accept things as they are. Yet companies want their employees to be motivated. And the very notion of motivation — striving to obtain a more desirable future — implies some degree of discontentment with the present, which seems at odds with a psychological exercise that instills equanimity and a sense of calm.”[11]

Critics point to the preliminary and inconclusive evidence that some workplace meditation advocates claim corroborates the effectiveness of mindfulness in achieving favored cognitive skills.[12] 

Kim reports that, “Mindfulness training can also run counter to a corporation’s goals. An article published by the journal Industrial and Organizational Psychology in 2015 suggests that because mindfulness encourages employees to act in line with their values and interests, it may elicit behaviors that are not in the best interests of organizational performance.”[13] A 2017 report from the National Center for Complementary Health and Integrative Health suggests that the fine-tuning of meditative practices accomplished within EMPs may contribute little to their success. Researchers analyzing the prevalence and patterns of use of three meditation types concluded that the "use of meditation may be more about the type of person practicing than about the specific type of meditation practiced...."[14]

Some studies indicate that meditation might not be as effective as previously expected. While some FTE workers enjoy their work and workplaces, many who are offered EMPs view their work as nothing more self-actualizing than a paycheck. These workers experience little, if any, enjoyment or self-fulfillment in their productivity. Since the technology they employ in production is the business owner's private property, workers experience a lack of control over their work, and view their labor as simply a meaningless job. The resulting weakening of labor power contributes to an existential "torment" among workers; what Marx calls “alienation.” 

The potential that workers might shift from applying their meditation to practical wellness and cognitive skills enhancement to deeper philosophical insight is reflected in an analysis by Robert Wright, author of the book Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment.[15]

Nonetheless, the average mindfulness meditator is closer to the ancient contemplative tradition, and to transformative insights, than you might think. Though things like stress reduction or grappling with melancholy or remorse or self-loathing may seem “therapeutic,” they are organically connected to the very roots of Buddhist philosophy. What starts out as a meditation practice with modest aims can easily, and very naturally, go deeper. There is a kind of slippery slope from stress reduction to profound spiritual exploration and radical philosophical reorientation, and many people, even in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street, are further down that slope than they realize.[16]

If Robert Wright is correct, then Raytheon is at risk of creating worker disillusionment if their meditation brings them to moral realizations that are at odds with corporate profit.[17]

As we have seen, there are implications within the capitalist global superstructure as well. Writing for The Guardian, Dr. Nafeez Ahmed, an international security journalist and academic, suggest an artful side to the altruistic pronouncements of the Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism (CIC). Reporting on the Henry Jackson Society's 2014 Conference on Inclusive Capitalism, which inspired the EPIC report, Ahmed summarizes the purpose of the event.

While the self-reflective recognition by global capitalism's leaders that business-as-usual cannot continue is welcome, sadly the event represented less a meaningful shift of direction than a barely transparent effort to rehabilitate a parasitical economic system on the brink of facing a global uprising.[18]

EMPs may carry significant inductive business risks. If EMPs fail to deliver, the wasted capital investment in training results from a misunderstanding of the available evidence and the causality of workplace meditation. Business owners multiply this risk when they take biased explanations of workplace toxicity seriously (like that of Mattke, Schnyer, and Van Busum). However, even where EMPs fail, businesses can still ameliorate inductive business risk. This is because EMPs can still function to identify, hire, and retain (through the use of a wellness performance metrics) those workers who possess valued natural cognitive abilities; and thus bolster a company's the inclusive branding that can increase its market share.

Rebecca Stoner appreciates an impact upon worker socialization. Stoner reviews Keywords: The New Language of Capitalism by John Patrick Leary,[19] a book critical of the capitalist semantic project, and offers a Marxist interpretation of Leary's account. Capitalist keywords (including some of those cited in this study) represent “a set of ubiquitous modern terms, drawn from the corporate world and the business press, that...promulgate values friendly to corporations...over those friendly to human beings....When we understand and deploy such language to describe our own lives, we’re seen as good workers; when we fail to do so, we’re implicitly threatened with economic obsolescence.[20] [My italics] 

This threat is proudly announced within the reconstructed semantic of inclusive capitalism.

...[T]here’s the “moral vocabulary of late capitalism,” which often uses words with older, religious meanings; Leary cites a nineteenth-century poem that refers to Jesus as a “thought leader.” These moral values, Leary says, are generally taken to be indistinguishable from economic ones. “Passion,” for example, is prized for its value to your boss: if you love what you do, you’ll work harder and demand less compensation.[21]

Replacing “Jesus” the Song of God with Jesus the thought “leader” defines away (or “rationalizes”) much of the hard-core metaphysical and ethical orientations that underpin traditional meditation practice. This provides businesses with a new ethical use value aligned with a millennial socialization that is at least disillusioned with traditional religion. Businesses then offer this use value, an ethical ethos, to workers, directing it towards cajoling workers, and then controlling their ethical and productive dispositions in a way that keeps them working at maximum capacity. 

I use the word “rationalize” in order to highlight Weber’s analysis of the process of rationalization that he claims removed the Protestant ethic from the economic and social aspects of an emerging capitalism. Work conceived as a spiritual calling evolves into labor as a function of profit.

At present under our individualistic political, legal, and economic institutions, with the forms of organization and general structure which are particular to our economic order, this spirit of capitalism might be understandable, purely as a result of adaptation. The capitalistic system so needs this devotion to the calling of making money, it is an attitude toward material goods which is so well suited to that system, so intimately bound up with the conditions of survival in the economic struggle for existence, that there can to-day no longer be any question of a necessary connection of that acquisitive manner of life with any single Weltanschauung. In fact, it no longer needs the support of any religious forces, and feels the attempts of religion to influence economic life...to be as much an unjustified interference as its regulation by the State. In such circumstances men’s commercial and social interests do tend to determine their opinions and attitudes.[22]

Similarly, EMPs significantly circumscribe the meditation training offered to workers in ways that not only maximize their effect within an encompassing system of capitalist production, but also appeal to a secular millennial worldview. EMP meditation practice does not center on expanding the spirituality of workers in order avoid business risks associated with realizations emerging from deeper insight meditation. Rather, it aims to calm and focus the mind, a goal that aligns with the millennial wellness and self-fulfillment ethos. It also reflects the millennial appreciation of the value of mental focus to work success, a recognition gained from their educational experience. Meditating workers generally testify that they feel a greater sense of “empowerment,” by acquiring mental tools to help relieve anxiety, stress, and disinterestedness. For many workers, EMPs provide appreciated healthful use values.

It is not surprising that the EMP industry deconstructs the traditional ethical, religious, and semantic orientation of meditation, re-conceptualizing it as a productive and self-actualizing mindfulness ethos. By doing do, capitalism can gradually transform (through social engineering and scientific management technology, for example) the external social semantic of its preferred workforce into one whose ethical hard core is aligned with inclusive capitalism. Thus, capitalism appropriates the externality represented by the consciousnesses of workers, including their natural cognitive abilities and dispositions and language, for the purposes of increasing labor power, and to rebrand itself as inclusive, and therefore potentially profitable. Together, these synergies represent the systemic tendency of capitalism to expand into new resource and market externalities, unexploited or underexploited. EMPs intend to assist productive and organizational requirements by exploiting one such externality: the cognitive abilities and behavioral dispositions of skilled workers. By doing so, EMPs promulgate a reconstructed and inclusive mindfulness ethos for workers that businesses employ internally to maintain its productive system, and expand their sales. 

The synergizing of productive capabilities along with branding and marketing efforts manifests an interpenetration of production and sales that typifies FMC.[23] Thus, the mindfulness industry exploits both the millennial worker desire for self-actualization (“success”) and the need of capitalism to accumulate to aligning a program of worker socialization with new technical modes of production, while simultaneously advancing business-marketing efforts.

This ethos is institutionalized in the operational semantics and metrics developed by the CIC, a marketing metrics that measures and advertises “intangible” capital. For example, significant intangible capital consists in a highly motivated workforce keen on developing individualized worker professional development plans. Since employers value self-motivation directed toward the advancement of productive skills, EMPs, beyond the directly productive, help businesses identify and retain workers with that favored workplace behavioral disposition. They do this by helping human capital management develop performance metrics for individual workers that are used to identify this favored workplace behavior, and provide a basis for appropriate compensation and potential advancement.

As FTE businesses realize the potential risks engendered within a toxic workplace, the mindfulness industry predictably blossoms. Meditation rooms, beautifully landscaped outdoor walking paths, and yoga training become as common as data models, spreadsheets, and project plans. If metrics indicate that meditation is “successful” in the sense explained by the CIC, companies can communicate their capacity for profitability to customers and investors with reference to specialized “human value levers” (like “Occupational health and wellbeing” - including meditation).

More evidence is required to verify the “successes” of EMPs. Certainly, people of good conscience wish others well, and hope that meditation practice will continue to have a positive impact on people’s lives. Even if EMPs do not deliver spiritually or behaviorally, businesses can engineer their programs to work synergistically with human capital management to enhance productivity. Businesses do this through worker acquisition and retention efforts that appeal to valued workers through offering EMPs. They also promote sales and investment by using value levers as advised by the inclusive business consortiums. Through the application of ergonomics, operational innovation, and advanced scientific management technology, capitalists can accomplish this without altering their empowering class apparatus of capitalism, and potentially maintain maximized accumulation.

To its credit, capital remains resilient and adaptive in its rebranding efforts, and for good business reasons. Nevertheless, as Ahmed reminds us, consortiums like the CIC might remain an “event” representing “less a meaningful shift of direction than a barely transparent effort to rehabilitate a parasitical economic system on the brink of facing a global uprising.”

Notes

[1] The terms “socially conscious” and “inclusive” are used synonymously within the theory, practice, and marketing of the new capitalist social consciousness. This study will use “inclusive,” as used by supporters participating in the “Embankment Project for Inclusive Capitalism,” which is examined below.

[2] Walter W. Powell and Kaisa Snellman, “The Knowledge Economy,” Annual Review of

Sociology 30 (2004): 17.

[3] Peter S. Goodman, "Why Companies Are Turning To Meditation And Yoga To Boost The Bottom Line," Huffpost, April 1, 2015, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/11/mindfulness-capitalism_n_3572952.html. (accessed February 11, 2019).

[4] Michael Sainato, “’We are not Robots’: Amazon warehouse employees push to unionize,” The Guardian, January 1, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/01/amazon-fulfillment-center-warehouse-employees-union-new-york-minnesota. (accessed April 27, 2019).

[5] Soeren Mattke, Christopher Schnyer, and Kristin R. Van Busum 30.

[6] Ibid., 3.

[7] "Denise Parrish," Price College of Business, http://www.ou.edu/price/entecdev/people/denise-parris. (accessed April 17, 2019).

[8] In this latter regard, Peter Temin’s hypothesis regarding the rise of a global “Dual Economy” as a manifestation of the emergence of the FTE sector provides a rich source of theoretical and empirical considerations regarding evolving and emerging sub-class distinctions within the working class.

[9] William Little, “Mindfulness courses at work? This should have us all in a rage,” The Guardian, Jan 31, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/31/

mindfulness-work-employers-meditation. (accessed February 25, 2019). Powell and Snellman: “Are these new practices intended to remake the organization of work to produce shared gains, or to increase productivity by increasing work output while the associated gains are skimmed off by those at the top of the (flatter) hierarchy?” (op. cit. 210)

[10] M. Goyal, S. Singh, and E.M.S. Sibinga, "Meditation Programs for Psychological Stress and Well-Being," Comparative Effectiveness Reviews, 124, January 2014, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK180104/#discussion.s9. (accessed April 7, 2019).

[11] Kathleen D. Vohs and Andrew C. Hafenbrack, “Hey Boss, You Don’t Want Your Employees to Meditate,” The New York Times, June 14, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/

2018/06/14/opinion/sunday/meditation-productivity-work-mindfulness.html. (accessed November 3, 2018).

[12] Pandit Dasa and David Brendel, “Does Mindfulness Training Have Business Benefits?”

[13] Hannah H, Kim, “Issue: The Meditation Industry” (January 29, 2018), Sage businessresearcher, 6.

[14] National Center for Complementary Health and Integrative Health, Meditators and Nonmeditators Differ on Demographic Factors, Health Behaviors, Health Status, and Health Care Access, New Analysis Shows.

[15] Robert Wright, Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2017).

[16] Robert Wright, "Is Mindfulness Meditation A Capitalist Tool Or A Path To Enlightenment? Yes," Wired, August 12, 2017, https://www.wired.com/2017/08/the-science-and-philosophy-of-mindfulness-meditation/. (accessed May 8, 2019).

[17] "...the bulk of this war’s civilian casualties have come from the Saudi-led coalition’s technological superiority and exclusive domination of the air. In the process, coalition airstrikes have left a trail of material evidence in their wake, including the remains of many Raytheon-manufactured systems.” Jefferson Morley, "Raytheon’s profits boom alongside civilian deaths in Yemen," Salon, June 27, 2018, https://www.salon.com/2018/06/27/raytheons-profits-boom-alongside-civilian-deaths-in-yemen_partner/. (accessed February 28, 2019).

[18] Nafeez Ahmed, op. cit.

[19] John Patrick Leary, Keywords: The New Language of Capitalism (Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2019)

[20] Rebecca Stoner, "The language of capitalism isn’t just annoying, it’s dangerous," MR online, December 21, 2018, https://mronline.org/2018/12/21/the-language-of-capitalism-isnt-just-annoying-its-dangerous/. (accessed December 26, 2018).

[21] Stoner, op. cit.

[22] Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (London: Routledge, 1992): 72.

[23] For this and other features of FMC, see John Bellamy Foster, “The Ecology of Marxian Political Economy,” Monthly Review, 63, no. 4 (September 2011): 1 - 16.

The Question of Hierarchy: An Interview with Colin Jenkins

By Brenan Daniels

This is a recent email interview I did with Hampton Institute founder and Social Economics Dept. Chair, Colin Jenkins, on the nature and problems with hierarchical structures, which he discusses in his article entitled Deconstructing Workplace Hierarchies: On Contrived Leadership and Arbitrary Positions of Power .

Some people would argue that hierarchies are needed as people aren't really capable of leading themselves or that if they did, we wouldn't have a stable modern society. What is your response to that?

First, I would ask where this "stable modern society" is? For a majority of the world's population, life is incredibly unstable. For many, life is dire. Even in a so-called "advanced" society like the US, tens of millions of people suffer from homelessness, food insecurity, joblessness, a lack of reliable and affordable healthcare, and with no means to feed and clothe their children. Tens of millions must rely on government assistance. Tens of millions do not receive adequate education. Tens of millions live paycheck-to-paycheck and can't pay their bills. And millions are terrorized by police forces and government agents in their own neighborhoods. Most Americans have less than $1,000 in savings , if any, and studies have estimated that more than half of all working Americans are one paycheck away from being homeless . And even those who appear to be getting by just fine are actually buried in debt, with credit card debt averaging $16,000 per household , mortgage and car payments that are barely doable, and student loan debt averaging at $49,000 per borrower, many of whom are in no position to ever pay that back. Our collective existence, despite a general appearance of comfort, is extremely fragile. And this economic reality doesn't even begin to touch on the compounded social realities lived by historically marginalized sections of the working class - people of color, women, immigrants, etc… The US is a ticking time bomb on the verge of exploding at any moment. Stability is a mirage.

Second, the idea that "people aren't capable of leading themselves" stems from a need to maintain fundamentally unequal societies where a very small percentage of the population controls most of the wealth and power. This has become part of the dominant ideology of most of the modern world. Because, quite simply, when a very small percentage of a particular population controls everything, there must be various ways to justify and enforce this control.

One way is through brute force or the threat of such force, which the modern nation-state holds a monopoly on. This is accomplished through the mere construction of a criminal justice system that has laws and ways of enforcing those laws. Over time, these laws become equated with some vague form of morality that is not questioned by most. You see the effects of this everywhere. For instance, when people try to condemn political struggles for doing things that are "illegal," they have subconsciously bought into the idea that written laws which have been drawn up by millionaire politicians , who are directly influenced by billionaires, should be revered as some sort of moral code. In reality, many of these laws are constructed to keep our extremely unequal society intact, and are directly tied to protecting those who own this illegitimate wealth and power . They are designed to keep most of us powerless and stuck in our increasingly precarious lives. Under such a society, a person who does not have access to food for themselves or their family is punished for taking food. A person who is homeless is punished for squatting in an abandoned building. A person who does not have medical care is punished (financially, if not criminally) for seeking medical attention. So on and so on… and all of this takes place in a very strict hierarchical arrangement where the appearance of "stability" remains at the forefront. It's an inherently unjust arrangement for so many, and the threat of force is constantly held over our heads to maintain this façade of stability.

Another way to justify and enforce this control is through what Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci referred to as "cultural hegemony," or dominant culture. Ruling classes throughout history have relied on both formal and informal channels to mold a dominant culture (ideology) that supports their rule. This can be established through a formal education system, through media sources, through organized religion and churches, etc… Under capitalism, this doesn't have to be done in a conspiratorial kind of way because the basic inequities stemming from the economic system create a sociopolitical structure that mimics and protects these inequities through social, cultural, political, and "legal" avenues. One of the results of this is a widespread, conditioned belief that we are not capable of caring for ourselves, our families, and our communities; and thus need so-called "extraordinary" people (politicians) to do this for us. It is a lie.

In a social sense, why do you think that social hierarchies and larger societal norms still reign when we don't seem to need them anymore? (Social norms were important in the early days of humanity as if one wasn't part of the group, they often wouldn't survive, but now it is rather easy to flourish alone or find people who you link with.)

Social hierarchies still exist because they are a natural extension from the more tangible/structural economic hierarchy. The dominant culture in this type of society needs such social norms. The Marxist theory of base and superstructure is useful in this regard. A materialist conception of history tells us that society is constructed on an economic base, or is based on the modes of production, because it is this fundamental arrangement that ultimately determines how people fulfill their basic needs. Everything else builds off of that arrangement. In a capitalist system, a large majority of the population is forced to rely on wage labor. This is an incredibly fragile and unstable existence because we are completely dependant on a privileged minority to provide us with jobs and living wages, things that capitalism inherently cannot provide to all. So, most of us are set up for failure from birth. This is why Frederick Douglass recognized that a "slavery of wages [is] only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery." Hence, Marx's focus on exploitation and alienation. This structural oppression created by capitalism explains the need for a Welfare State, because societal unrest would be inevitable without the state supplementing these inherent and widespread inequities.

So, according to this analysis, there is a superstructure that builds from this unequal base, and this includes social, cultural, and political realities. Naturally, the superstructure mimics the base, while it also helps to maintain it. In doing so, these corollary developments tend to take on the same characteristics as the base, which, as already noted, consists of a high degree of alienation and exploitation. This basically means that social systems stemming from an inherently exploitative base tend to become exploitative themselves. One of the best examples of this is white supremacy, which is an artificial system of valuing human worth based on skin color. White supremacy is a modern cultural phenomenon that extends throughout the superstructure in both overt and undetected or insidious ways. And it is a valuable tool used by the capitalist/ruling class to create division within the working-class majority. This is why Malcolm X once proclaimed that "you can't have capitalism without racism."

Other cultural phenomena like patriarchy and homophobia work the same way. These things easily catch on within the working class because they are a source of empowerment for an otherwise powerless group. We're all economically disenfranchised, but poor and working-class white men can still grasp on to whiteness, "manliness," misogyny, and homophobia as sources of power and social dominance. You see this psyche develop not only in white people, but also throughout the working class. Some black men, despite their own intense structural oppression, will become misogynistic or homophobic as a source of empowerment. A particular immigrant community will dehumanize another immigrant community as a source of empowerment. American workers across the board will target and dehumanize immigrants. So on and so on. What we're seeing here is the formation of social hierarchies within the working class, all of which mimic the hierarchy created by the economic base. Tragically, this perceived power over others within the working class is easily accessible, and it's a cheap and toxic source of empowerment. But it is a good thing for the capitalist class, as it keeps working-class angst directed within its own ranks and away from the real culprits - the rich. It's the ultimate distraction.

On a related note, these social hierarchies are worthy of examination to all of us who oppose the capitalist system. When we look at developments within the superstructure, we can strategize and build liberation movements that will ultimately break them down, which will in turn allow us to build a formidable resistance against the economic base. This is why intersectionality is crucial. But intersectionality only works if it is based in a fundamentally anti-capitalist orientation. Because if we don't approach this with the ultimate goal of attacking and destroying the economic base, it won't matter in the end. We'll find ourselves in the same position, only under a multi-cultural, multi-sex, non-gender-descript boot, as opposed to a "white, cisgender, male" boot. And this is the pitfall that identity politics fall into. Capitalism has the ability to accommodate these types of political movements by simply allowing individuals from hyper-marginalized sections of the working class to assume positions of power within these hierarchies. This approach is only about assimilation; and because of this, it only demands that that the power structure become more inclusive, not that the power structure be eliminated. Capitalism can and will seek to appease this kind of tokenism without changing its inherently authoritative and exploitative structure.

People seem to be (at least somewhat) against hierarchy, from having an intense dislike of their bosses to wanting a level playing field. Why do we not see more people moving away or speaking out against hierarchy? So many times, it seems that the very people at the bottom are the ones who argue in favor of it.

Yes, definitely. This is a form of cognitive dissonance that we all experience from time to time, and I reflect on it briefly in the piece: "…organizations are often able to stoke a cognitive dissonance among its workforce, which simultaneously puts forth a healthy dose of faith in the 'team approach' by day while complaining about the incompetent and overbearing bosses by night."

This particular line refers to the contradictions we feel in the workplace. The daytime mentality is one that is a product of constant conditioning, which tells us that hierarchies are needed, that we are naturally dependent on bosses, and that we would be lost without them. The nighttime mentality is more natural and will creep into our heads at times, causing us to question everything we're conditioned to believe during the day. Daily interactions with bosses plant the seed for these realizations, as we recognize their incompetence or at the very least their lack of exceptionalism. This will inevitably bring us to consider that maybe we don't need them, maybe we are just as (if not more) competent, that there really is no meritocracy, and that if they happened to suddenly disappear one day they probably wouldn't be missed.

This is, of course, true. We don't need them. But the conditioning that we are subjected to in most aspects of our lives tells us otherwise, and this makes it difficult for many to realize that truth. To consider the very notion of "supervision" and "management" as anything but insulting is truly amazing, when you think about it, yet most struggle with this dissonance. And understandably so, since the conditioning is intense and begins at such a young age. This reminds me of the notion of " bullshit jobs " that David Graeber has talked about in length, and is in the process of writing a book about. His angle is more focused on working-class jobs throughout the system, but I think this same line of thinking can be applied to jobs that fill the hierarchy just for the sake of filling the hierarchy.

In addition to this conditioning, there is also a mentality that becomes fairly prevalent among those who exist on the lower end of the hierarchy, and it speaks to the old adage, "if you can't beat em, join em." It is the mentality that creates the toadies for bullies, that creates house slaves for the master, etc… it forms whenever someone has been psychologically beaten into submission. These are the folks who have given themselves completely to the system, to the powers, to their bosses and overseers because, quite frankly, they simply have no fight in them, no self-esteem, and no dignity left. They are the first to dish the dirt to the bosses, the first to scab during a strike, the first to call the police on their neighbor, the first to serve the powerful with whatever is needed, and always at the sake of their class peers on the lower end of the hierarchy. These folks will always argue in favor of hierarchy, despite their lowly position in it, because they've decided that it's easier to accept it, support it, and invest in it, rather than fight it. And, in many respects, they're right. Fighting power isn't easy. It often has disastrous personal consequences for those who partake in it. As the Russian anarchist Sergey Nechayez wrote in the opening of his famous Catechism of a Revolutionary, "The revolutionary is a doomed man." There is a lot of truth to this.

How do people reinforce hierarchy in their everyday lives and how can they fight back against it?

I think basic daily human interactions reinforce these cultural hierarchies that the base relies on. There is an ongoing debate within the Left about the power and usefulness of language. This debate is intimately connected with things like "privilege discourse," "political correctness," "call-out culture," and identity politics. Many leftists who are loyal to materialist analysis, and who spend a lot of time railing against post-new left discourse, minimize the importance of language. Many younger leftists, who are more inclined to intersectionality or who enter the Left through a lens of identity politics, place a premium on policing language. While I realize the dangers that are associated with this type of " post-new left discourse " (primarily when it is not based in anti-capitalism), I also agree that there is something to language and how it reinforces the hierarchies that we are ultimately seeking to bring down.

Dominant vernacular is rooted in dominant culture, no? If we are to believe in historical materialism and the reciprocal relationship between the base and superstructure, then it seems consistent to also believe that all of the societal norms that development within this cultural hegemony stem from this same base. Because of this, language tends to be misogynistic, homophobic, white supremacist, and classist. This is reflected in media, Hollywood, advertisement, talk radio, and sports, and as well as in our daily interactions with one another.

It can be very subtle. Using the n-word reinforces white supremacy. Using the f-word reinforces homophobia. Claiming that someone has "no class" reinforces bourgeois culture. Using the term "white trash" reinforces white supremacy by implying that "trash" is defaulted as being non-white. Calling women "hoes" and "whores," while at the same time basing their human value in attractiveness or sexuality, reinforces patriarchy. Praising someone as being "like a boss" reinforces capitalist hierarchy. Worshipping celebrities reinforces a capitalist culture that determines human value based in wealth, or the lack thereof. Being absorbed in consumerism reinforces a culture that determines human value on the brand of clothing or shoes one is wearing, or the kind of car they drive, or the house they live in. These types of things quite literally place varying degrees of value on human lives, thus reinforcing various forms of social hierarchy. And something as simple as language, or the ways in which we interact with one another, emboldens the power structure(s) that we as leftists seek to destroy.

In what ways do you see hierarchy expanding or intensifying now that the US has moved to a 'service economy,' apparently in which there will be an increase in hierarchical authority, compared to when the US was a manufacturing nation? How has the dismantling of unions aided (as of current) or helped to dissuade (in the past) workplace hierarchy?

I am not sure the service economy will necessarily expand or intensify hierarchical arrangements in any structural sense. But you're right in suggesting that a move away from an industrial/manufacturing economy has made workers more vulnerable and powerless within these hierarchies. Service-sector work is much more precarious, is typically low-wage with very few benefits, and often does not include any kind of healthcare coverage or retirement plan. And the service-sector environment leaves workers on a virtual island, in that it doesn't offer the same potential for collectivization as the traditional shop floor once did. Without collectivization, workers are basically powerless.

The dismantling of unions went hand in hand with the offshoring of manufacturing jobs. Since the neoliberal revolution that was ushered in by Reagan, the share of workers who belong to unions in the private sector has fallen from 34 percent to 7 percent. I believe 1 in 3 public sector workers are still in unions. Overall though, union membership has plummeted in the US, which is a very bad thing for the working class. Under capitalism, our only leverage against capital is either (1) the government, or (2) labor unions. The government is now owned by capital, and thus acts solely in its interest. So that's effectively out of the equation. And unions have not only eroded, but many that have endured have taken on a corporate hierarchical structure themselves, where union executives are often completely out of touch with membership. Union leaders tend to be in bed with corporate politicians, an arrangement that is contradictory to the purpose of unions.

We see this contradictory nature when unions routinely endorse corporate Democrats who represent capital. We see it when unions agree to no-strike clauses. We see it when so-called leadership gives concession after concession, year after year, until there's virtually nothing left to bargain for. And we see it in this bureaucratic, corporatized union culture of today, where demands have been replaced by requests. Unions will often take reactionary stands that defy international and universal solidarity. We saw this recently with the AFL-CIO endorsing the Dakota Access Pipeline. You see it with police unions or prison employee unions, all of which side with capital and the social hierarchies that extend from capital, ultimately oppressing large sectors of the working class.

With the erosion of authentic labor unions, we've become much more vulnerable to these extreme hierarchies as a whole. And without these types of unions, workers simply have no chance against the powerful interests of capital. So, yes, the degrees to which we are smothered by these hierarchies will only intensify in this environment, especially if we continue to place our hopes in the government, politicians, and corporatized labor unions. This is exactly why I'm a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, which is "one big union" that is rooted in revolutionary industrial unionism.

How does your argument regarding hierarchy creating a lack of trust square with this modern idea that work places need to be 'open areas' so that people can 'bond?'

That's a good question. We read a lot about this new-age sort of workplace organization stemming from Silicon Valley, Google, Apple, etc… This idea that workplaces should be more carefree, less constrained. I've read about such experiments where workers can take naps, bring their pets to work, have access to fun activities directly in the workplace. And when you look at workplace organization in some European countries, you see that many companies have attempted to do away with traditional hierarchical structures to make workers feel more "at home" in a relaxed environment.

The fact that companies are experimenting with these 'open areas' confirms, at the very least, that they are aware of the archaic and inhumane nature of traditional hierarchical workplaces. This move also reflects some studies that have been done regarding productivity, which have suggested that workers are more productive in environments that are less constrictive, and that workers typically are only productive for a few hours a day. So, if anything, it's an attempt by companies to adjust with the times and do away with old forms of organization.

Unfortunately, attempts like these only tend to create more internal contradictions to capitalism. Attempting to mask the inherent nature of capitalism only goes so far. And the "open-office model" that Google became known for is not really an effort to make hierarchical structures more horizontal. It is concerned only with literal workspace, not with the ways in which the hierarchy operates on a structural level. And while it may appear to be benevolent on the surface, it often has more insidious motives. A 2014 article by Lindsey Kaufman touched on some of these issues, pointing out that "these new floor plans are ideal for maximizing a company's space while minimizing costs," and that "bosses love the ability to keep a closer eye on employees," with less physical barriers obstructing them. Studies cited in the article suggested that these open-office experiments were not beneficial to workers, at least from the workers' point of view. A study found that many workers are "frustrated by distractions" and lack of privacy, both sound and visual. And workers reported that these new floor plans did not ease interactions with colleagues, as intended, because this was never viewed as a problem to begin with.

With these results in mind, it seems such attempts have been a failure. And it makes you wonder why they were attempted in the first place. Was it really to create a "friendlier" atmosphere, or was it rooted in something more sinister? Understanding the way capitalism operates, it's safe to assume the latter. Either way, despite the motivations, the capitalist structure still remains - which means that most workers are creating massive amounts of wealth for executives and shareholders in exchange for wages and salaries that do not equal their contribution. If they make enough to lead comfortable lives, they may be more willing to overlook this structural exploitation. But it still exists. Bosses still remain, and workers are still treated as commodities, no matter how glossed over the physical workplace appears. There are still those who make more, in many cases a whole lot more, for doing much less (the pursuit of "money and idleness" that I referenced in the piece). And some who rake in large amounts of money for doing absolutely nothing, and without even stepping foot in the workplace. That is the fundamental nature of both capitalism and hierarchies. No amount of makeup can change this.

What is your take on the literature and ideas surrounding employee relationship management? What do you think is the actual idea around it on a structural level?

This type of literature is designed to address the inequities by essentially covering them up as best as possible. Their purpose is two-fold: to teach bosses how to get the most from their workers; and to get workers to buy into a "team approach" that convinces them they're vested in the mission in some way. This is accomplished basically through propaganda, or a conscious effort to downplay the coercive nature of this relationship. On the one end it provides bosses, supervisors, and managers with tools and tactics rooted in persuasion, to get workers to think, behave, and perceive themselves in a way that is detached as far from reality as possible. Since human beings don't typically react well to being treated and used as tools, to be manipulated, prodded, directed, etc, employers find its useful to mask this reality as best as possible.

So this type of literature is designed to give bosses ways to obstruct this reality. To interact with their workers in ways that mask the coercive power they wield over them. And they tend to be very successful in doing this… so much so that many workers truly believe they are vested in the businesses they work for, or at the very least will rep that business in a positive way to friends and family, if only to mask their shitty realities to themselves. A shitty reality that basically amounts to us spending most of our waking hours in a place we do not want to be in, doing something we would rather not be doing, so we can get a paycheck every few weeks, so we can pay our bills, so we can scrape out a living for another few weeks. For most of us, it's a never-ending cycle that we'll never escape. It's a miserable, inhumane existence where life is lived a week at a time, or two weeks at a time, essentially from one paycheck to the next. And the best we can hope for is to stay afloat until the next paycheck, so we can start over again. And to add insult to injury, we're told that we "should feel lucky to even have a job." That's the world capitalism brings us.

So this workplace literature, and the management tactics that come from it, plays into the cognitive dissonance that I mentioned earlier. On a structural level, the idea is merely to keep things churning by creating alternative realities that workers can be proud of. To use the plantation analogy, it really is a way to instill the house-slave mentality in each and every one of us. It won't work for some, but it works well enough for most. Even those struck with this cognitive dissonance will often lean toward that which makes them feel vested, secure, proud, respected, appreciated, etc… even though these feeling are not consistent with reality. It is a form of coping for many, and corporate literature will certainly exploit that and drill it home. And we as workers, stuck in our miserable realities, will often accept it if it helps us cope. Because we need that paycheck.

Deconstructing Workplace Hierarchies: On Contrived Leadership and Arbitrary Positions of Power

By Colin Jenkins

Bosses don't grow on trees. They don't magically appear at your job. They aren't born into their roles. They are created. They are manufactured to fulfill arbitrary positions of power within organizational hierarchies. They possess no natural or learned talents, and they are not tried and tested through any type of meritocratic system. Rather, they gravitate to these positions of authority by consciously exhibiting attributes that make them both controllable and controlling - being punctual, highly conformist, placing a premium on appearance, knowing how to talk sternly without saying much of anything, blessed with the ability to bullshit.

Hierarchies aren't natural phenomena within the human race. Outside of parenting, human beings aren't born with the inclination to be ruled, controlled, "managed," and "supervised" by other human beings. Hierarchies are artificial constructs designed to serve a purpose. They are a necessity within any society that boasts high degrees of wealth and power inequities. They are a necessity for maintaining these inequities and ensuring they are not challenged from below. They exert control, conformity, and stability within a broader society that is characterized by artificial scarcity, widespread insecurity, unfathomable concentrations of wealth and power, and extreme inequality. Without such control, these societies would unravel from within as human beings would naturally seek autonomy and more control over their lives and the lives of their loved ones - control that would amount to nothing more than the ability to fulfill basic needs.

Despite the artificial and arbitrary nature of both bosses and hierarchies, they persist. They dominate our days from the time we wake until the time we go to sleep. They control our lives, our livelihoods, and our ability to acquire food, clothing, shelter, and all that is necessary to merely survive. If we do not subject ourselves to them, we run the risk of starving, being homeless, and being unable to clothe or feed our children. Despite this, we seldom examine them, seldom question their existence or purpose, and seldom consider a life without them.

Capitalism, Hierarchies, and "Management"

"People stopped being people in 1913. That was the year Henry Ford put his cars on rollers and made his workers adopt the speed of the assembly line. At first, workers rebelled. They quit in droves, unable to accustom their bodies to the new pace of the age. Since then, however, the adaptation has been passed down: we've all inherited it to some degree, so that we plug right into joy-sticks and remotes, to repetitive motions of a hundred kinds."

- Jeffrey Eugenides

While hierarchical human relations have existed in many forms throughout history, the dominant modern hierarchy stems largely from capitalist modes of production. Capitalism is a system that relies on private ownership of land and the means of production for the purpose of transforming capital and commodities into profit for the owners of said land. Under the predominant system of industrial capitalism, those with sufficient capital may purchase parcels of land, build means of production (i.e. factories) on that land, and employ masses of workers to create products which can be sold on the market for a profit. Owning this land, and accessing the capital required to transform it into a means to produce, is a privilege reserved for only a very few. When land is privately owned in this manner, it represents a social relationship between those privileged few (owners/capital) and the rest of us (workers/labor). It is not owned for personal use, but rather for use as a location to extract labor value for production and profit. The owners of private property do not use it to satisfy any personal needs, and rarely even step foot on or in it. Understanding the difference between personal property and private property is crucial in this regard, as the term "private property" is often misused to falsely associate capitalism with freedom. In reality, when private property is used as a social relationship, as it is in a capitalist system, it becomes antithetical to any sense of freedom or liberty. A large degree of the profit that is created in this process is done through the exploitation of labor, whereas the owner will pay each worker a set wage in exchange for labor that ultimately creates commodities worth much more than this wage. And with the legislative destruction of the commons that took place during the transition from feudalism to capitalism, performing labor for an owner essentially became a coercive proposition, not a voluntary one. For under capitalism, those of us who must sell our labor to survive essentially have two options: (1) work for someone or (2) starve (this reality is the exact reason why the welfare state became a necessity alongside industrialization).

Because the development of capitalism represents the latest form of coercive social relations between human beings, the need for industrial "management" and "supervision" is paramount. After establishing the coercive conditions necessary to compel workers to sell their labor to owners (through the legislative destruction of the commons), owners were left with figuring out how to maximize their exploitation of a workforce that was ultimately forced to spend half its waking hours (if not more) in a place they do not want to be in, doing something they do not want to do. This task has endured ever since. Not surprisingly, scientific management, or Taylorism, developed alongside industrial capitalism with this very purpose: to improve "economic efficiency" through the improvement of "labor productivity." Fordism also surfaced around this time, taking a more all-encompassing approach to issues of mass productivity and management under capitalism. The common denominator in these fields of "human management" was to figure out how to effectively commodify a human being; in other words, how to turn a human being into a machine in order to perform menial, repetitive tasks for several hours at a time. Capitalist management systems looked to slave plantations for ideas on how to best accomplish this task. "The plantation didn't just produce the commodities that fueled the broader economy; it also generated innovative business practices that would come to typify modern management," Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman write . "As some of the most heavily capitalized enterprises in antebellum America, plantations offered early examples of time-motion studies and regimentation through clocks and bells. Seeking ever-greater efficiencies in cotton picking, slaveholders reorganized their fields, regimented the workday, and implemented a system of vertical reporting that made overseers into managers answerable to those above for the labor of those below."

The hierarchies of slave plantation management have effectively been transferred to modern office buildings in both the private and public sectors. To this day, entire fields of study have been dedicated to "organizational management" and "workforce optimization." The hierarchies that exist today, whether in private or public organizations, stem from archaic forms of management designed to essentially make humans less human. The fact that the term "human resources" has been fully integrated into our vernacular highlights the inhumane nature of labor in this regard. Coercion is simply not enough to ensure productivity. Frederick Taylor's contributions made this clear, at times valuing workers as less than "intelligent gorillas;" while Henry Ford's assembly-line, mass-production operations carried out Marx's warning from decades prior, essentially turning workers into mere "appendages of machines." Ford even went as far as creating a Sociological Department designed to study and standardize workers' private lives in order to further streamline them into visages of machinery. Ultimately, these fields of study have developed the corporate culture that has become synonymous with capitalist society: extreme hierarchies, a total absence of autonomy, strict guidelines and rules, threats of disciplinary action, and complete submission to conformity. These organizational hierarchies have been placed everywhere - within most corporations, most companies, most schools, most non-profits, most NGOs, and most public agencies. Quite simply stated, they are a necessary component in maintaining the unnatural wealth and power inequities that are so rampant within the capitalist system. Without high levels of control to keep people in line, this system would inevitably collapse.

The Contradictions and Inefficiencies within Hierarchies

"Maybe it is not a coincidence that, even in heaven, under the perspective of the Bible, there is a hierarchy. After all, what better way to impose the "benefits" of accepting the power of a hierarchy in the human mind?"

- Miguel Reynolds Brandao ("entrepreneur, business developer, and investor")

While hierarchies serve a systemic purpose in regards to how they relate to broader society, they also develop internal cultures that mimic the unequal power relations that have come to characterize our society under capitalism. These internal cultures breed competition among workers by creating an exclusive, managerial class that must be filled by a select few. In order to satisfy the inherent power inequities that exist within all hierarchies, organizations create arbitrary positions of authority, advertise these positions as being available to those who "qualify," and encourage people to pursue these positions in exchange for material gain. In this pursuit, however, contradictions and inefficiencies naturally arise.

In a professional capacity, whether we're talking about a public or private organization, people climb the proverbial ladder for two reasons: 1) to make more money and 2) to work less. The narrow-minded pursuit of authority and power, whether conscious or subconscious, essentially lies within these two, fundamental objectives that are inherent to human beings who are placed within hierarchical (competitive, not cooperative) systems defined by capitalist/corporate culture. In other words, when forced into a top-down organizational structure, it becomes natural to want to make more (money) and work less (idleness). The often-subconsciously attractive idea of acquiring a position of authority is the singular casing around these material wants. While the uncivilized act of exerting power over another human being may boost self-esteem, this form of psychosis ultimately operates secondary to the material benefits that come with this power. Therefore, it is safe to assume that if material benefits did not accompany positions of authority, they likely would not exist.

Regardless of this inclination, there are still many people who have no interest in climbing the ladder. Ironically, these people, for one reason or another, are more beholden to the natural human attribute of cooperation. They are either able to see beyond the self-centered pursuit of power (money and idleness) and are simply turned off by it, or they are just not interested in climbing over (and eventually overseeing) others for personal gain. In turn, those who choose to seek power (money and idleness) - those who are willing to spend time and energy climbing the ladder - do so in a purely self-serving way. They simply want to make more and work less, have no qualms about taking positions of artificial superiority over their fellow workers, and thus do whatever it takes to obtain that status within the organization. This flow creates an interesting paradox, as the most self-serving members of an organization inevitably gravitate to the top of the hierarchy. Thus, while organizations theoretically consist of groups of people working toward a common goal, this natural phenomenon based in hierarchical ascendency inevitably destroys any hopes of a collective will, while also breeding a culture of incompetence (as those self-serving individuals take the reins).

This culture of incompetence almost always comes to the forefront, as a majority of workers will inevitably experience it through daily occurrences of redundancy, inefficiency, and frustration. When there is work to be done, bosses almost inevitably seek refuge in their offices. When crises arrive, bosses do not take it upon themselves to work, but rather demand more work from those below. In most cases, bosses become so far removed from the actual work and mission of an organization that they essentially alienate themselves. As this disconnect grows, so too does the culture of incompetency. And with the tendency for animosity to develop from the majority of the workforce that is perceived to be "at the bottom," the only option for those who seek to control, supervise, and "manage" other human beings is to instill fear in their subjects. At this stage, trust is non-existent, organizational problems are always reduced to workers not doing enough, and solutions are always rooted in disciplinary action.

Furthermore, this phenomenon creates a natural inefficiency as those who are paid more money are essentially contributing less to the mission. In the case of so-called "supervisory" and "management" positions, this inefficiency becomes two-fold by not only creating a scenario where the organization is getting less for more, but also seeking more for less from the majority of its workforce (since this void must be filled somewhere). With this realization, we can see that hierarchies are not only unnatural forms of organization, but also inefficient and incompetent ones. Their purpose for existing lies in controlling this unnatural environment predicated upon massive inequities of power and wealth. However, beyond this need to reinforce the coercive nature of society, they are useless from within. This paradoxical existence is thus forced to construct mythological purposes for the arbitrary power positions that serve no real purpose internally, yet must maintain and mimic the power relations that exist externally. Ironically, wielding fear through micromanagement and the constant threat of disciplinary action ultimately becomes this artificial purpose. And it convinces those who occupy these power positions that workers are inherently lazy and, therefore, must be prodded like cattle. The irony comes in the fact that any development of so-called laziness, or a lack of effort, that comes to fruition from below almost always is the result of widespread animosity toward those who exist "higher up" on the ladder for the sole purpose of making more and doing less. Human beings simply do not respond to arbitrary positions of authority (often candy-coated as "leadership positions") because such positions serve no purpose in any real sense of organizational operations. Frankly put, the mere existence of these positions is an insult to all of those who perform the brunt of the work from "below."

Corporate Doublespeak, Contrived Leadership, and Insecurity

"Corporations are totalitarian institutions. Board of directors at the top of managers give orders, everyone follows orders. At the very bottom of command, if you are lucky you can rent yourself to it and get a job, and if you are sufficiently propagandized you may even buy some of the junk they produce and so on."

- Noam Chomsky

The totalitarianism inherent in corporate structures is defined and preserved by the hierarchy, and these structures stretch far beyond for-profit, private enterprises. In an attempt to justify arbitrary positions of power, organizations often portray them as "leadership" positions, deploying corporate doublespeak like "team leaders" or "officers" in their hierarchical arrangement. The problem with this is that leadership, in any true sense, is an absolute contradiction from power; and especially from arbitrary power. The acquisition of money and idleness that becomes synonymous with climbing the ladder makes leadership roles impossible for those who fill these positions to obtain. Never mind that the term "leadership" itself often includes connotations of superiority, or at the very least attempts to differentiate oneself from "the pack." Leadership can never be arbitrarily assigned through "promotions" or self-proclamation. If leaders truly exist among people, they only do so through a form of facilitating. And it may only develop organically, as the result of unplanned developments springing from natural occurrences of facilitation from within a group. Leaders are facilitators who may provide organic direction in a group, and they are always those who exhibit a selfless willingness to take on a brunt of the effort, or at the very least their share of the collective effort, while expecting nothing of individual value in return. Dictating from behind a desk is not leadership. Screaming down from a supervisory booth is not leadership. Analyzing and calibrating labor productivity is not leadership. Those who climb the proverbial ladder to (1) make more and (2) work less can never be leaders. Thus, filling arbitrary positions in hierarchies can never produce any semblance of leadership. Coercion, yes. Fear, yes. But never leadership.

The fact that hierarchies remain the predominant organizational structure throughout capitalist society tells us two things: (1) they are the most effective structure for exerting control; and (2) control is most desirable characteristic of any organization existing under capitalism. The inherent cultures of incompetence and contradictions which develop within these structures remain a secondary concern to that of maintaining control. And by masking this controlled environment through corporate doublespeak, organizations are often able to stoke a cognitive dissonance among its workforce that simultaneously puts forth a healthy dose of faith in the "team approach" by day while complaining about the incompetent and overbearing bosses by night. This is accomplished through a rebranding of arbitrary power to justify it with the appearance of a (non-existent) meritocracy, and tame it by transforming self-serving overseers into "leaders." The insidious nature of this rebranding even goes as far as trying to convince those in arbitrary positions of power that they not only belong there, but invariably serve an important purpose there. The natural insecurities that develop within managers and supervisors, who are plagued with a never-ending paranoia about being exposed as the frauds they are, are put at ease with cycles upon cycles of "leadership courses" and mounds of self-help books that call on their inner-CEOs to seize the moment!

Despite these contrived efforts to establish competence and confidence, those in arbitrary positions of power within a hierarchy are undoubtedly reminded of their uselessness during daily operations. The material benefits that come with these positions are typically all that's needed to cope with this realization; however, the organizational contradictions and inefficiencies always remain, and with them enduring fissures seeping with animosity and fearfulness from below, and insecurity and paranoia from above. There is simply no getting past the fact that the mere act of "supervising" another person is inhumane, because its purpose is premised on the belief that people are inherently lazy, dishonest, irresponsible, and incompetent. Or, at the very least, the existence of supervision confirms the coercive and inhumane nature of both traditional labor and hierarchies. Supervision is only necessary in a world where workers are viewed as cattle to be prodded, pushed, "motivated," and directed. The fact that those placed with this task of supervision possess no special skills or talents only makes this relationship even more precarious, as those being supervised will almost always recognize the illegitimacy of their supposed superior. Whether through interviews or exams, there simply is no way to find people suitable for supervising others… because, quite frankly, they don't exist. The supervision or management of a human being is never a suitable proposition, no matter how many executives, boards, curriculum developers, trainers, and corporate planners try to make it so.